The Joint Commission prescribes National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG) with the objective of improving the level of patient safety in various healthcare set-ups. Thousands of accredited healthcare organizations throughout the country are required to implement these goals.

The national patient safety goals are updated on an annual basis. Some of the latest key goals are listed below.

– Patient Identification: A minimum of two identifiers must be used to recognize each patient, name and date of birth being common examples. This double identification method ensures that the correct patient is approached, while administering medications, collecting blood or other samples, when giving blood transfusion, or administering any other kind of treatment. The labeling of the collected specimen must be done immediately in front of the patient itself.

– Communication: This important goal of communication not only stipulates timely delivery of vital reports to the concerned staff member but also requires writing down any orders given verbally or over the telephone and read back for confirmation.

– Medication Safety: Prior to beginning any medical procedure it is extremely important to label all the medicines whether they are in the cups or even in the syringes. Also remember to be extra careful if any of the patients are taking blood thinning medications. Ask the list of all the medicines the patient is already taking and tell the patient when to take new medicines. All the doses both old and new must be duly recorded.

– Prevent Infection: Guidelines stipulated by the World Health organization (WHO) or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for effective hand cleaning must be employed. Furthermore established guidelines for prevention of infections post surgery or of the urinary tract due to catheters must be adopted. Also special care must be taken to prevent infection of blood or those that cannot be easily treated.

– Surgery Mistakes: Just as in the case of patient identification you must make sure that the surgical procedure is being administered to the correct patient and at the accurate location on the body. Take your time before beginning the surgery to check the files and mark the location on the patient’s body to avoid any surgery mistakes.

– Identify Safety Risks: You will have to assess the patients to find out if any one of them is suicidal, and will also have to establish such suicidal triggers. The level of risk has to be determined and communicated to the relevant authority within the organization so that the required procedure for observing such patients can be implemented without delay.

– Risk of Falling: Some patients may be more prone to falls due to certain physical reasons or also because of some medications that can cause dizziness or weakness. To prevent harm from falling the patient as well as the family must be advised on ways to reduce such possibilities and the vulnerability must be highlighted on the patient’s arm-band and the chart.

Combinations of some or all of the above points have to be followed by different healthcare organizations with a common aim of increasing patient safety.

For more information, please visit our national patient safety goals website.

For more information, please visit our national patient safety goals website http://www.hipaaexams.com/national-patient-safety-goals.html

Author Bio: For more information, please visit our national patient safety goals website.

Category: Wellness, Fitness and Diet
Keywords: national patient safety goals,Prevention,Disease Control,World Health organization,medications